#THE RETURN OF TWIN PEAKS
Chris Thorpe, email I just wanted to drop you my thoughts on the new Twin Peaks. The main one being that maybe I shouldn’t have invited people who haven’t seen any of it round to watch the two-hour premiere! Anyway, I thought it was genius. It was worth it to see everyone’s faces as the weirdness ensued. Only me and my friend Kathryn (who brought her own papier-mâché log!) had seen the show before, and for the most part, we didn’t know what was going on either. Isn’t that kind of thrilling, though?
John Curr, Facebook Best thing on TV by absolute miles Ashley Cronk, Facebook Can’t get enough of it. Paul Wheeldon, Facebook It was awesome! Right from the beginning there was that palpable feeling of unease and Lynch playing with the viewers. Brilliant. SFX Well, Lynch has had a quarter of a century to get this season of Twin Peaks right. Anything less than “bloody good” would suggest he’s been wasting his time.
James E Parsons, Facebook The anticipation was so high. It started how I would expect from Lynch but then episode two gave us a wonderful Lynchian greatest hits remix head-trip. It has been much like the recent films of Lynch, which I am happy with. Will it come around to reconnect with the familiar Peaks style we most know and love? Ultimately I think it should. Among the regular perplexing moments there have been enough great things to suggest it can be damn fine to the end.
Mark Anderson, Facebook I’ve enjoyed it up to episode six, which for me was like watching paint dry – and magnolia at that. With 18 episodes, I want Lynch to start telling the story. I don’t expect a rollercoaster of a series (that’s not Lynch’s style) but I do expect character and story development, not Cooper still a shambling amnesiac five episodes in.
Neil Bartlett, Facebook Tripe. I loved seasons one and two. This one is pretentious and boring.
Darren Etienne Loving it, but the Dougie/ Cooper thing is infuriating... get your shit together, Dooper!
Right from the beginning there was that palpable feeling of unease
James J Collins, Facebook Watchable but I’d have preferred if every character wasn’t in full weirdo mode. Why wasn’t it about Cooper getting out of the Black Lodge and chasing down his doppelganger (BOB) instead of this very drawn-out weird-fest?
Robert William Graham, Facebook As weird as ever and nice to see some familiar faces. SFX I’d have loved it if Lynch had done something really surprising and turned Twin Peaks into a normal, linear cop drama – an American Midsomer Murders. That really would have been weird.
Michael Garner, email When the return of Twin Peaks was announced I was really, really sceptical. I expected nothing from the new series at all. TV has changed so much since it was last on, in part thanks to the influence the show had on TV as a medium, and I just imagined weirdness and retro-chic. However, the first four episodes of the new series are nothing short of genius. It’s like 10 people wrote a page each, like 10 directors directed 5 minutes each, each focusing on a different aspect, be it acting, lighting, camera work, colouring, symbolism… Yet somehow it is coherent, it is compelling, it is stupid, grotesque, humorous, brilliantly stupidly acted and stupidly brilliantly acted. Fingers crossed for the rest of the series. I’m so glad Twin Peaks is back!
Beckie Symons, Facebook I am stone-cold loving it! What I loved most in the original series was the flat-out weirdness and I always looked forward to those parts the most – the soap opera angle never worked for me and just bored me to tears. So it’s brilliant and compelling viewing having Lynch twist our minds all over again. I would love to see it renewed – unless Lynch gives us the perfect ending and I certainly would accept that!
Gregory Barlow, Twitter Is it wrong to want a happy ending? It won’t be – it’ll be strange and upsetting – but is it wrong to want one? SFX Sadly, on current form we’ll probably have to wait until 2043 for a proper resolution. #THE WONDER STUFF
Medium Atomic Weight, email Wow! If there’s one thing Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman projects on screen, it’s complete trust. You never doubt for a moment she is the real deal. That majestic stance, the statuesque physique, the determined stare… No fear of Superman dropping you mid-flight or Spider-Man’s web breaking mid-swing, you know this superhero is going to get the job done. Politicians take note, we’d have no hung parliament with Wonder Woman in charge! James Kinsley, email Will admit to not being 100% enthralled with the Wonder Woman movie. Partly it’s an origin movie, so yeah, familiar beats. Also partly the WWI setting, which did suddenly make me feel awkward when the Germans were painted as monstrous ogres – I realised it’s a lot easier to portray a whole country as cartoon villains when they have swastikas on their arms, but it doesn’t sit so easily in the context of a muddier and less clear-cut conflict.
That said, it’s still the best DCU offering to date by miles, just not... wonderful. Gal Gadot shone throughout. Every moment she was on the screen, she elevated proceedings. She created a character that I want to follow into even better movies. SFX I had a few misgivings about the final Big Bad showdown, but I loved everything else about Wonder Woman. It just shows what a misstep it was making Henry Cavill’s Superman so dour – turns out you can still have a superhero powered by optimism and and joy.
#A VERY NEW HOPE
Les Chester, email I went to a press preview of Star Wars in October 1977, a couple of months before the film went on general release. The Americans had been going mad about the film so of course I was intensely curious, especially as it seemed to be, basically, “cowboys and indians” in space.
The lights went down, I sat back, and I thought, “Go on then, impress me”… And boy, did they. I was hooked right from the first couple of minutes, when I heard the Imperial Star Destroyer going over my head before it even appeared on the screen. Here’s a picture of my preview ticket! SFX We envy you, Les! In fact, if I was ever granted three wishes, I think one would be the chance to watch the three original Star Wars movies for the first time again – after I’d fixed a few global crises, of course.